The Balloon
It was a beautiful day. I was with my two sisters to eat in a fast food restaurant. As we sat down in our seats reading the menus, I saw a family of three pass by. I recognized them as our new neighbors from next door. There was a mother, a son, and a daughter. The mother is Selma Tyde. She's a nice lady, but a little scary. The son is Jackson, fourteen years old and a troublemaker of sorts and the girl is Abby, who is only seven. I thought they just came back from some amusement park because I'd noticed that the girl was holding a white balloon, which was oddly covered in black streaks. I wanted to see the rest of the balloon, but I couldn't just waltz up to them. "Hey, what're you looking at?" my youngest sister asked me. "What? Oh, I was looking at the..." I pointed to the table our neighbors were sitting at, but my sisters could see nothing but the balloon. "Come on, you're sixteen. You're too old to be interested in stuff like that," one of my sisters sternly said. When our meals arrived, I still kept my eyes on the balloon, munching on some french fries as I did. Finally, the floating white turned around, and I managed to see the rest of it. It had a face, similar to the one of Ghostface's from those famous Scream movies, only the eyes and mouth were scribbled and thinner. Did I mention that we were sitting next to a mirror wall? The balloon just gaped at the mirror as if it were looking at itself. It continued to do that until my sisters and I had finished our food. The balloon then turned and faced me. Its terrifying face mimicked that of a person in horror. After the family had left, the balloon still stared at me, turning its face as our new neighbors walked away. For the rest of the day, that face kept on haunting me, even while I was shopping for dresses with my two sisters. We and our neighbors arrived at home at about the same time. The little girl still had that balloon with her. I was kind of hoping for it to fly away after the girl got bored, or get popped by her brother as a prank. But she still had it, that horrible thing. That's when things got worse. When I went to bed, I heard screams at about three in the morning. They made me jump out of my bed, and that's when I saw some lights flick on next door. My eldest sister and I went over there to find Mrs. Tyde screaming, with tears flowing down her cheeks. It jolted me a little because I thought I saw a drop of blood on one of them. "My baby! My baby's dead!" she yelled hysterically. As my sister went to call the police, I went inside the house to investigate. When I stepped into a room full of stuffed toys, I saw the most traumatizing sight I have ever seen. Abby Tyde was hanging from the ceiling with a balloon string coiled around her neck. It was so thin and tight that it nearly sliced through her neck. As the little girl's nightdress continued to soak up blood, I found something written on the wall behind her: "I am free." That's when I saw the balloon again, this time with no strings attached. It twirled to show not the Ghostface expression, but one of sadness and anger. It was the last thing I ever saw. Category:Items/Objects